Tag Archives: Barack Obama

HOWARD MEGDAL: Boehner refusing to let the president speak on 9/7 before joint session of Congress was ludicrous. Obama caving and moving speech to 9/8 is demoralizing.

CHRIS PUMMER: Really looking forward to more whining on the left about how “This should have been where Obama drew a line in the sand!” and “Here is Obama caving again!” and “It’s so horrible, why don’t we just kill ourselves!?!?!”.

MOLLY SCHOEMANN: As those of you who know me personally are aware, and those of you who don’t know me will soon find out, I don’t follow politics very closely, except for a few rabid months before a presidential election, when I engage in heated debates and pretend to be politically aware. But I do what I can. And tonight I did listen to NRP’s Fresh Air hosted by Terry Gross, in which she interviewed Rachel Tabachnick, who has been studying the growing “New Apostolic Reformation” or, “Terrifyingly Crazy-Pants Fanatical Right Wing Evangelical” movement in America.

CHRIS PUMMER: Seeming crazy in his own way, Jon Huntsman has been trying out a new, tougher attitude with his GOP rivals. Not crazy like believing in demons, but perhaps crazy in thinking he’s advancing his cause to become the Republican presidential nominee. Continue reading →

HOWARD MEGDAL: It is easy to think of Tuesday night’s results in Wisconsin as a disappointment for Democrats-thanks largely to the high expectations the party gave itself. But seeing a pair of Republicans who’d won both in 2008 and 2010 should serve a warning to the pundits scrambling to call President Obama a one-term president.
The country is turning on the Republicans in a huge way.

JESSICA BADER: Flipping a third seat would not have rolled back the legislative attack on collective bargaining, and not flipping that seat does not mean that the recall effort was a failure for Democrats and organized labor. If Tuesday night was a baseball game, there are still more innings left to play. Continue reading →

CHRIS PUMMER: If you missed Mitt Romney’s speech last week clarifying his position on the health care reforms passed while he was governor of Massachusetts, you weren’t alone. You were actually part of the vast majority that shrugged at this…

Howard Megdal: What does the Bin Laden raid remind you of? Naturally, all the days Jimmy Carter didn’t go rescue the hostages in Iran. The two paths- one of action, the other of inaction, are so close- the word ACTION is actually found in the word INACTION! The only surprising thing was that when Obama announced Bin Laden’s death, he wasn’t eating out of a big jar of peanut butter.

DAVE TOMAR: As history will show, President Bush had a much bigger banner. Exactly eight years to the day that Bush humbly touched down in a military bomber on the U.S.S. Lincoln under a declaration of “Mission Accomplished” and gave us the big thumbs up, Obama delivered a grandstanding 3 minute speech in which he arrogantly praised the military and intelligence communities for bringing down bin Laden. Continue reading →

CHRIS PUMMER: It’s too early to say Richard Mourdock is going to take down Indiana Senator Richard Lugar (R). That’s not to say Mourdock can’t thread that political needle against a skilled and respected sitting Senator. But it’s an uphill battle, and I wouldn’t say he’s anywhere near the favorite to win it.

HOWARD MEGDAL: Who’s to say what qualifies as a favorite in GOP primary circles anymore? Richard Lugar has a long record of compromise, service in Washington D.C., and worked across party lines to get things done- precisely what killed GOP lawmakers like Mike Castle and Arlen Specter within the GOP. And both Pennsylvania and Delaware hardly qualify as conservative bastions; Indiana is more conservative than either state. Continue reading →

HOWARD MEGDAL: I believe it is asking the wrong question to wonder if Mike Bloomberg is planning to run for president in 2008, 2012, or any specific year. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t looking to maintain a national profile with an eye on running- should the right circumstances come along.

JESSICA BADER: Perhaps at some point Bloomberg was seriously considering a run for the presidency, but various events over the past couple of years seem to have thrown cold water on the possibility of success in such an undertaking. Continue reading →

AKIE BERMISS: Being born in 1983, all of my interaction with things before that is imaginary. And I suppose that is the way it is for all people. History is something you learn either from books or stories or its something you capture from older people around you as it translates down the ladder of generations. And so one can imagine oneself in the times before one’s existence by that proxy. So I have always nursed this false nostalgia for the decades gone by. I feel in my heart that maybe super stars were really stars then. That singers were really singers, that leaders were really great men and women who commanded the attention of the nation, and that celebrated persons were really worth celebrating. I know its probably unrealistic — that, more than likely, those celebrities are as vapid and untalented as many of our present day celebrities — but I still reserve a place in my heart for the simpler beauty and convictions of what songwriter and pianist Dave Frishberg describes as the “dear departed past.”

ZOË RICE: If I pride myself on being rational and forming opinions based on experience and empirical evidence, then why does this recent Defamer article about irrationally hating certain celebrities ring so true? “Hate” takes it too far. But I admit to distasteful feelings when I see or hear about Renee Zellweger, January Jones, or Megan Fox. So, why? Why do I never want to share a dinner table with these women I’ve never even met? Let’s explore.